Is this similar to Bret Victor’s talk “Inventing on Principle”, or is it pretty different? From the slides, it seems similar. Is it worth watching even if I’ve already seen “Inventing on Principle”?
Short answer: no, it isn’t really similar. I saw a Bret Victor talk at Strange Loop 2012 and I was rather uninterested in the solution that he seemed to be proposing. That solution being the use of visualization for most, if not all, programming processes. In short, I just didn’t (and don’t) think that that’s the whole answer.
But this talk is, I think, much more subtle. It is a thoughtful critique of modern programming using an effective framing device where Bret Victor performs the talk as if it is the early-to-mid 1970s. This conceit works really well for me because it does two things at once. The first thing is that it highlights the amazing things that were possible 40 or more years ago. The second is that it highlights how narrow, and in some cases stagnant, the computing advances of the last 40 years have been. It made me reflect that I’m using a 30-odd year old text editor inside a simulation of a 35 year old glass teletype.
The talk raises a lot of interesting questions. If you’re the kind of person that doesn’t mind questions being raised but not answered then there’s a lot to enjoy in this talk.
Is this similar to Bret Victor’s talk “Inventing on Principle”, or is it pretty different? From the slides, it seems similar. Is it worth watching even if I’ve already seen “Inventing on Principle”?
Short answer: no, it isn’t really similar. I saw a Bret Victor talk at Strange Loop 2012 and I was rather uninterested in the solution that he seemed to be proposing. That solution being the use of visualization for most, if not all, programming processes. In short, I just didn’t (and don’t) think that that’s the whole answer.
But this talk is, I think, much more subtle. It is a thoughtful critique of modern programming using an effective framing device where Bret Victor performs the talk as if it is the early-to-mid 1970s. This conceit works really well for me because it does two things at once. The first thing is that it highlights the amazing things that were possible 40 or more years ago. The second is that it highlights how narrow, and in some cases stagnant, the computing advances of the last 40 years have been. It made me reflect that I’m using a 30-odd year old text editor inside a simulation of a 35 year old glass teletype.
The talk raises a lot of interesting questions. If you’re the kind of person that doesn’t mind questions being raised but not answered then there’s a lot to enjoy in this talk.
Link: Bret Victor – Inventing on Principle